SkyWaitress.com

Today was our last day eating in and we didn’t do anything fancy. For dinner we made our vegetarian taco salad which is about the easiest thing on the planet. It’s a taco flavored, meat substitute that heats up on the stove. Add whatever salad fixings you like and it’s done. It’s one of my favorite meals actually.

It was an interesting week. I actually had a lot of fun trying out different recipes and I even feel healthier. Food at restaurants tends to be so fatty and greasy and I never feel like I eat enough fruits and veggies. Eating in I got to control exactly what went into my food and I made sure to incorporate healthier ingredients. Amazingly I didn’t have any major disasters either! Perhaps not quite as interesting for you readers but I feel good about it. It was a lot easier than I imagined it would be too. I didn’t spend hours in the kitchen every day because we were able to eat leftovers certain days. I still need to work on starting on dinner earlier since we tended to eat at around 8pm most nights. Things always seemed to take longer than I expected. I just have to learn to think about food before I’m hungry. All in all it was a great experience and I’m planning on continuing it for the most part. I feel much more productive and good about myself when I eat something that I worked hard on rather than just ordering in all the time.

My favorite quote of the week:

Joel- “Abigail, I love you more when you cook.”

Me – “Um, thanks… so do you love me less when I don’t?”

Joel – “Uh….”

Thanks Huffington Post for an interesting challenge and making my husband love me more in the process.

Well, today we kind of cheated. We had a yummy pancake breakfast at home and just relaxed. Then I had a job interview. That went really well so Joel and I decided to see a movie. That’s when we ran into trouble. See, I have this obsession with popcorn. It just seems so wrong to see a movie without popcorn so I caved and we bought some. And an icee. Because what’s a movie without popcorn and an icee? For dinner we weren’t very hungry because of all the popcorn so we had the rest of the fritatta I made the other night. It was still yummy.

So we’re still good on all of our technical meals but we did buy some food “out.”

I feel like second grader writing in her journal right now. I did this. Then I went and did that. It was fun. We ate food. It was good food. It was a good day.

I’m sorry this is so boring. I’m tired, it’s been a long couple of days. I have a lot on my mind actually but nothing I feel comfortable sharing with the whole world. It’s one of those trains of thought where if I share I’d be afraid I’d look like I was feeling sorry for myself (maybe I am) and I wouldn’t want any pity comments. Then again, I’d be just as afraid of not getting any comments at all. It’s no-win. Maybe I can figure out how to put my thoughts into words eventually but until then I’ll just blabber on about basically nothing and bore you to tears. Hope you needed a good cry.

I knew eventually eating in all week would probably become more of a challenge but I didn’t know it would happen so soon. I found out today was National Free Pancake Day at Ihop. I love their pancakes, especially when they’re free! In my head I tried justifying it. Ya know, it was supposed to be about saving money and if it’s a free meal then it doesn’t really count. In fact it should be even better because it doesn’t cost me anything at all… right? *sigh* I didn’t give in to temptation though and held out. I can get free pancakes next year.

This morning I didn’t have anywhere to be so I was able to have a normal breakfast. It wasn’t anything fancy, just some cold cereal. For lunch I made Joel and myself spinach and cheese omelets. It was my first time making omelets and I was surprised that it went pretty well. It actually came out looking like an omelet instead of scrambled eggs so I was pleased.

Dinner was another story. I got a recipe for portabella mushroom burgers off Spark People. I love mushrooms and when I looked at the ingredients it seemed like it would be delicious. I didn’t pay close attention to the instructions when I decided to make it though, and that was my big mistake. We bought all the ingredients yesterday and as I was preparing to make the burgers I read the recipe more closely. That’s when I realized this was not going to be a quick and easy meal to make.

The recipe called for garlic, rosemary, thyme, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. When I read the ingredient list I assumed they all would be mixed together and then rubbed on the mushroom cap. Yeeeah, not exactly. What I actually had to do was this:

I cut little slits in the top and had to insert the garlic, rosemary and thyme into the holes one by one. It took for.ever.

Once I finally finished stuffing the four mushroom caps I brushed the oil and balsamic vinegar on them and grilled until they were tender. The looked pretty nice once they were done.

Unfortunately they weren’t as delicious as they sounded and looked. They weren’t awful but they were no where near worth the time it took to prepare them.

So, out of six meals at home I’m only classifying one as a fail so far. Not too bad for a girl who almost never cooks.

Joel and I eat out way too much. This is mostly out of laziness. I have a really bad habit of not thinking about food until I’m ready to eat. I don’t tend to plan ahead and by the time I start thinking about food I’m too hungry to want to cook something. More often than not there’s not much of anything in the house for me to cook even if I wanted to. This is also because of laziness, I really hate grocery shopping. Joel doesn’t mind doing it but his work schedule doesn’t give him a whole lot of time. All this eating out is expensive and it’s been awful on my waistline.

Joel and I have been meaning to eat in more for awhile and so when the Huffington Post announced their Week of Eating In challenge I was excited. It was the perfect excuse to stay in, eat healthier and save money.

Today was day one:

On Mondays Phoebe has obedience class. Of course I stayed up too late the night before and got out of bed later than I should have. Then the shower water wouldn’t get hot (grrrr) so I took too much time fiddling with that before I just gave up and took a cold shower. Anyway, all that meant that I was running out the door at the last minute so my breakfast was a cheese stick. Not exactly gourmet but it kept me from fainting during class.

For lunch I ate some leftover vegetarian chili. I got the recipe off Spark People. It was pretty good and it lasted me three meals so definitely inexpensive. Normally on Mondays I’m so hungry I pick Joel up and we grab some kind of fast food. Today it was nice to eat at home and not spend the money.

For dinner I made my Greek turkey burgers. Those are always delicious and one recipe makes seven or eight burgers so I was able to freeze half and we’ll have them again later this week or next week.

So far we’re off to a good start. We have all the ingredients we need for our meals tomorrow and we’ll go grocery shopping for the rest of the week on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to cooking more this week. If I cook anything extra delicious I’ll be sure to share the recipe. I’ll also share if I have any cooking disasters so you can laugh at along with me.